Sandefjordmuseene (''Hvalfangstmuseet'') is a museum located in

Sandefjord Sandefjord () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. It is located in the Traditional districts of Norway, traditional district of Vestfold. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Sandefjord ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. It is dedicated to the whaling industry and is the only specialized museum on the subject of whales and whaling in Europe. Since 2009, the museum has been associated with the Vestfold Museum (''Vestfoldmuseene''). It is one of the largest whaling museums in the world, and Europe's only museum dedicated to the whaling industry. Sandefjord Whaling Museum houses a full-size recreation of a 21-meter

Blue whale The blue whale (''Balaenoptera musculus'') is a marine mammal and a baleen whale. Reaching a maximum confirmed length of and weighing up to , it is the largest animal known ever to have existed. The blue whale's long and slender body can ...

, which hangs from the ceiling in one of its galleries. ''

Southern Actor ''Southern Actor'' is a former whale catcher, currently a museum ship based in Sandefjord, Norway and owned by Sandefjord Museum. It is the only whale catcher from the Modern Whaling Epoch still to be in its original working order. Over 100,000 h ...

'' is based on Museum's Wharf and is a part of the museum. It is the only

whale-catcher A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales. Terminology The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Jap ...

from the Modern Whaling Epoch still in its original working order. The museum was visited by over one million people from its opening until 1994.

History

The Whaling Museum in Sandefjord (''Hvalfangstmuseet i Sandefjord'') was inaugurated as a donation from Consul

Lars Christensen Lars Christensen (6 April 1884 – 10 December 1965) was a Norway, Norwegian shipowner and whaling magnate. He was also a philanthropist with a keen interest in the exploration of Antarctica. Career Lars Christensen was born at Sandar, Norway, S ...

, the son of Norwegian shipyard and ship owner, Christen Christensen. Its full name is "Commander Christen Christensen's Whaling Museum". The building was designed by architect Niels Winge Grimnes (1885-1922). When it opened in 1917 the museum building was one of the first original museum buildings in Norway. Lars Christensen had two main goals when opening the museum; to inform the public about the

Antarctic The Antarctic (, ; commonly ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the South Pole, lying within the Antarctic Circle. It is antipodes, diametrically opposite of the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antar ...

and its fauna and animal life, as it was a relatively unknown continent at the time, and to tell the story of

whaling Whaling is the hunting of whales for their products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that was important in the Industrial Revolution. Whaling was practiced as an organized industry as early as 875 AD. By the 16t ...

as an industry. The museum was visited by H.M.

King Haakon VII Haakon VII (; 3 August 187221 September 1957) was King of Norway from 18 November 1905 until his death in 1957. The future Haakon VII was born in Copenhagen as Prince Carl of Denmark. He was the second son of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess ...

on his first official visit to Sandefjord on June 23, 1920. Since its opening, the museum has experienced some major changes including an expansion in 1981. Today, the Whaling Museum's aim is to be a central institution in the presentation of a wide range of material connected to the history of whaling as well as the ecology and management of whales and their habitat. The museum's photo collection consists of 150,000 photographs around 30,000 of which are related to whaling. The museum is host to a host of international conferences related to marine life and to whales. Exhibits include ''

'', a whale catcher built 1950 for Chr. Salvesen & Co. of Leith, Scotland. Today the restored vessel is a

museum ship A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the small numb ...

open to the public. The former whale catcher is both a living museum and a passenger ship.

Gallery

File:Busen 2 whale catcher model (HS.03831-1).jpg, Model: ''Busen 2'' File:Hvalkokeri Vikingen - skipsmodell.jpg, Model: '' Vikingen'' File:Star VI+VII whale catcher model (HS.02804-2).jpg, Model: ''Star VI+VII'' whale catcher File:Sir James Clark Ross HS.02802(4).jpg, Model: ''Sir James Clark Ross HS'' File:Modell av Grytviken kirke (HS.03422).jpg, Model: Grytviken Church built by Reidar Th. Karlsen in 1999

References

Other sources

*Wexelsen, Einar (1993) ''Vel blåst! Kommandør Chr. Christensens Hvalfangstmuseum 75 år'' (Sandefjord: Hvalfangstmuseets publikasjon nr. 28)

External links

Hvalfangstmuseet websiteVestfoldmuseene IKS website
{{coord, 59.131, N, 10.227, E, display=title, source:dewiki Whaling museums Whaling in Norway Maritime museums in Norway Museums in Vestfold Buildings and structures in Sandefjord

History

Gallery

See also

References

Other sources

External links